Basic Needs Ministry - Meeting Wake's Needs
A Wake County Social Services staff member assigned to provide for the homeless took his marked vehicle across the county line to Basic Needs Ministry, 5533 N.C. HWY 42 W, Johnston County, to pick up $50,000 worth of new and like new clothing. The transfer of 1,200 men’s slacks and shirts was arranged by the staff at Brooks Avenue Church of Christ after learning that his request for clothing had been turned down by many Raleigh charities.
Basic Needs Ministry is a public charity, which normally serves any of the 119,000 residents needing free and reduced priced clothing and living within 10 miles of the Intersection of I-40 and N.C. 42. Since there are few homeless living within walking distance of the rural clothing warehouse, where 28,000 clothing items are on display, this was a unique opportunity to serve that unique community. Wake County has paid staff, who walk the woods and crawl around underpasses trying to serve those who are frequently not very mobile. It is important that clothing be available in the county office for those who do come in for other services. Although there are dozens of free and reduced priced clothing sites in the Raleigh area, many homeless do not make the trip and when they get there, they do not want to be asked questions, and some find that they cannot qualify.
This is not an unusual event in the world of providing for our communities’ less fortunate. Charities, which use paid staff, find it very difficult and expensive to provide their services to sort through the large quantity of new or clean donated goods to find a specific 1,200 piece order for a county agency. The process has 4 steps: donation of 240,000 clothing items; discard to rag markets or landfills of 90% (216,000) torn, dirty, and worn items; find something to do with the 22,800 items which the county agency cannot use; and arrange pickup of the 1,200 items by the county agency. If the charity lacks a rag contract, its disposal fee will be $1,500. The hand sorting could take 400 paid staff hours, costing $4,000.
The public could reduce the cost of operation substantially for small charities and government agencies alike by simply providing only new and like new clothing when donating and providing only the type of clothing needed and used by the receiving agency. Agencies could narrow their solicitation requests to reduce handling, sorting, and disposal. Large charities do not want to reduce their volume of clothing donations, because they make millions of dollars by bailing clothing as soon as it is donated and selling it to foreign clothing markets, funding their non-clothing operations. The sorting time and cost to find the clothing for Wake County Social Services would be prohibitive in such a high volume operation, which for very little labor may earn the charity $110 for an 1,100 pound bale of clothing.
Our communities need a higher number of volunteers working with clothing projects to recover the good clothing that is unworn and hanging in our closets, which because of convenience will either find its way into the landfills or on foreign markets. A greater number of brokers are pretending to be charities to increase their local clothing collections and increase foreign sales. Basic Needs Ministry has been able to provide over $2.5 million to the community in benefits from its clothing ministry in less than 3 years, because of its commitment to provide free clothing to meet the human needs and seek the higher value of its clothing in reuse.
Support for Basic Needs work is as simple as shopping at its fundraiser sales 1 block west of I-40 Exit 312 on N.C. 42 on Saturdays from 9-6. Current clothing needs may be brought to the shop on Saturdays: men’s slacks, particularly waist sizes 32, 34, and 36. Donations to offset the warehouse costs of $35,000 a year may be sent to: Basic Needs Ministry,
1413 Kenbrook Dr., Garner, NC 27529-4447. For more information, contact Ronald Still, Director and unpaid volunteer, at 919-661-6565.